Monday, April 28, 2008

Thanks, but...

To all the well-meaning commenters, emailers, and folks in meatspace who suggested alleviating my suffering with the miraculous Neti Pot:

Folks, I still to this day plug my nose when jumping in a pool. I can't submerge my head under water without blowing a vigorous stream of bubbles through my nose. The very thought of water getting up my nose... Well, let's say that if I was waterboarded, they'd barely have time to get the wet cloth over my face before I was selling out my own blood kin and screaming "Do it to Julia!"

Suggesting that I pour water up my nose, even a small amount of warm, beneficial water from a happy-looking little mystic clay pot, is like telling the arachnophobe that she should eat the live spider because it's small and furry and full of vitamins. It ain't gonna happen.

It's remarkable, our culture. On one hand, people buy Neti pots and subject themselves to it. On the other hand, often the same people protest against providing the Neti experience to intelligence sources.

I'm the same way about submerging my head and getting water up my nose. Yet the netipot, while initially uncomfortable, doesn't bother me the same way. You can still breathe and you control the amount of water. The relief you get having the clogged sinus/post-nasal drip washed away is worth the temporary icky feeling.

It took a long time to warm up to the "irrigation" concept, lemme tell ya. The pot is miserable. Just the perfect device to humiliate yourself in front of yourself.

However, the soft squeeze bottle branded "NeilMed" works *great*, and you don't have to perform gymnastics over your sync to get the whole business to work.

In fact, I like to use Cold R/O water plus 50% hot brewed green tea, plus the little salt packet. It feels less like drowning. Go ahead, somebody tell me how I'm going to get something horrible growing in my brain.

It's good stuff. Do it with the bathroom door closed and the lights off if you have to.

I don't like swimming in salt water because of the water-up-the-nose problem, but the NeilMed bottle is A-OK.

I use the Neilmed bottle. Warm saline solution is nothing like getting plain water (or even worse, pool water) up your nose. Plain water burns. Proper saline is pretty much a lower-viscosity version of what's up there already.

Slightly off topic, but I once new a guy that could, and regularly did on a bet, drink an entire bottle of beer in one swig through his nose. Never could bring myself to try it, but it sure was entertaining to watch the reaction of people who had just lost said bet.

If you use iodized you get the burn in the nose like you do in a swimming pool, or if you snuffle a handful of water in the shower (what a doctor told a guy I worked with in the US Navy). Use non-iodized salt and there isn't any sting.

But there is an intermediate step.

Wal-Mart and pharmacies and grocery stores sell Ocean brand 'Saline Nasal Mist'. Most of them also sell their store-brand of saline nasal mist; I like the Wal-Mart brand. My chiropractor in Arizona recommended using this stuff for nose bleeds (keep the sinuses moist, keep the mucous from drying and shrinking and tearing up those sensitive mucous membranes). I mentioned it to my family doctor. He told me, "Sure, twice in each side, once an hour, and blow. That will clear up to a sinus infection, and help with most allergies."

Saline Nasal Mist. A sinus spray that cannot interfere with any medications, about as addicting as washing your hands. It also helps with the sore throat - which is due to congested mucous trickling down your throat from your sinuses. Hmm. Maybe the neti pot doesn't sound quite as bad.

If you do use the neti pot, remember to clear all four 'pathways'. In the nostril, head turned to the side so the water runs out the other nostril. Repeat with head lifted a bit so water runs into the back of the mouth and out. Repeat both using the opposite nostril.

Like washing any rash, sore, or cut, the first few times are worse than after you get it cleaned and keep it that way.

+1 on the Ocean brand saline spray. Changed my life. Works better than those steroid nasal sprays like nasanex, at least for me. There's one on my desk, one in my car, another in the first aid kit, and usually one in my pocket too. I use it at least once a day, usually twice to keep my sinuses moist and happy.

Water up the nose? Nah, no problem. Stuff touching my eyes? I've been nearsighted as a mole since I was seven and I've been shoving contacts into my eyes or having an opthamalogist poke them ever since. Needles? BFD- and I have the brightly colored arm to prove it. Got to dig something out of my skin? Have at, I've done it myself often enough.

Anything pricking or poking my hands or fingertips, though, and I melt right the hell down into quivering Jello. The TB test was a haunting terror of my childhood. I can't even handle a basic finger-stick blood glucose test, and the trick with those is getting ENOUGH blood to get a single drop, the wound is so shallow and clots so fast. I'd rather get gashed on the leg with a knife than submit to either.

Neti pots are soooo gross. I'm another "blow air out the nose while swimming underwater" type, and I even rinse my hair with my head facing away from the showerhead because of the risk of getting water up my nose. Eurgh. The nasal spray really isn't so bad, though - it feels really weird the first time, and you're definitely going to want to have tissues handy, but it's a lot better than pouring a cup of warm saltwater in your face while leaning over a sink and breathing through your mouth.

My sister uses a WaterPick to flush her sinuses, couple times a day, I think. Well, maybe not since moving to AZ. I bought one, but only resort to it when I get a sinus pressure headache. Hate using it, but by then even multiple doses of meds have a limited effect. I know if the cause is a sinus infection, by all the blood. Severe allergies and small passages are a bad mix.